


bleed through

by takecourage



Series: reel around [2]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, Case Fic, M/M, Nightmares, Pyromania, Unresolved Emotional Tension, one (1) single attempt at being nice, or stray morses for that matter, peter jakes is not immune to stray cats, yet more mild police corruption in oxford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26486182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takecourage/pseuds/takecourage
Summary: There is nothing Peter wants to do more than go home, get obscenely drunk, and pass out on his sofa. But as he’s pulling his coat on, he catches a glimpse of Morse, in the dark save for the weak light of his desk lamp, head bent over his typewriter.He doesn’t particularly know what he feels, but it’s something very similar tofor fuck’s sake.
Relationships: Peter Jakes/Endeavour Morse
Series: reel around [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915942
Comments: 21
Kudos: 65





	bleed through

Some bird’s been murdered in a train yard, which is an excellent start to Peter’s week.

He and Thursday arrive at the scene about ten minutes later, the place already swarming with uniforms, and for whatever fucking reason, Morse — as in, currently on general duties Morse — is there too, waiting expectantly for them.

And the hits just keep on coming.

Before he can ask General Duties Morse precisely what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, Thursday’s already following him towards the body. He trails after them, just about managing to light his cigarette in time — stupid lighter barely works anymore. Which, admittedly, is hardly surprising given basically all he’s been doing is flick it on and off, on and off, at his desk, but it’s something to do with his hands.

He crouches down by the dead girl, looking for anything DeBryn might’ve missed — unlikely, but it’s still worth a try. Morse just stares, very determinedly, at the opposite wall. Still not over his thing about the dead, then.

DeBryn fills them in on what he can already tell them which, predictably, is what amounts to _she’s dead._ Ah, but he says it so well.

“She’s an earring missing,” Peter notices.

“I've a contingent of cadets coming down to search,” Morse says. Of fucking course he already knew.

Peter stands up, turning away from the dead girl to face him, and realises that they’re both more or less the same colour, which is hilarious. “Got a name for her?”

“Evelyn Balfour,” he replies instantly, like a prick. “Um…” he flicks through his notebook. “She works behind the bar at Cowley Bingo. Husband last saw her last night about seven o’clock when she left to visit her sick mother.”

Peter rolls his eyes and doesn’t bother asking anything else.

“Wasn't he worried when she didn’t come back?” Thursday asks.

“There was a possibility she may stay overnight. She told her husband her mother was ill. Her mother's been spoken to. Nothing wrong with her.”

They all look back at the dead girl, Evelyn, in unison. So she was probably having an affair — don’t need to be a detective to figure that one out.

Thursday’s eyes narrow. “What’s that in her mouth?”

"A handkerchief.” DeBryn carefully tugs it free, and Evelyn’s mouth hangs open, looking for all the world like she’s screaming, her still-open eyes utterly empty. “Embroidered with the letter... D.”

After they’ve finished with DeBryn — or, more accurately, after DeBryn’s finished with them — Peter is dispatched to do his least favourite thing: find Morse. He’s got this creepy little habit of just vanishing when people’s backs are turned, which is arguably worse than the relentless pen clicking.

It takes him slightly longer than he’d like to admit, but he tracks down Morse eventually. He’s stood next to Strange, muttering something Peter can’t hear, which instantly gets his back up.

“We're going to take the husband. You can do her work.” He says, taking a second to enjoy Morse’s slightly bewildered expression. “Just the facts. Don't need confusing with any _theories_. Then you're back to the nick and resume general duties. Right?”

Morse nods, face blankly polite, and Peter walks off, being fully aware that Morse is probably pulling a face behind his back, but he doesn’t care. He’s had it worse off more people. It’s just for the day, and then General Duties Morse’ll piss off again and let him do his job.

Thursday knocks on Balfour’s door and when he answers Peter’s instantly one hundred percent sure Evelyn was having an affair. And he can’t blame her — he would, if he was married to _that_.

That, in this case, is the single most boring man on the planet. He looks like he does his taxes for fun. And as Thursday starts interviewing him, it transpires he does. To think he apparently has no idea his wife was getting shagged in random train yards. Incredible.

He gets back to the nick before Morse does, which isn’t exactly surprising. He’s probably out licking the train tracks or whatever it is he does to come up with his bloody theories. The second he walks through the door, DC Williams shoves a newspaper at him, a massive grin on his face, and Peter’s annoyed for a half a second until he sees the front page. It’s a picture of Morse, looking like a smartly-dressed (for once) deer in the headlights, with the caption _Top of the Cops!_

It’s probably the best thing to have ever happened to Peter.

“Oh, fucking _brilliant.”_ He grins so widely his cheeks start to hurt. Their very own singing detective. Top of the cops! He’s going to have to write to Frazil personally to say thank you, a bare minimum of twelve pages long. “We’ve gotta get that framed.” He could have it on his desk, just as a something to cheer him up when writing reports got too boring, or they could hang it up over the door. Top of the Cops!

“D’you think he’s seen it yet?” Williams asks, pulling the newspaper back towards him for another look.

He wonders for a second, then an idea pops into his head. He tugs the paper out of Williams’ hands and gives him a look that means _watch this_ , and crosses the office to put it on Morse’s desk, carefully folded so he has no choice but to see the photo.

He walks back to Williams, who’s already laughing, and waits.

By the time Morse gets back, half the station is waiting to see his reaction. A small part of Peter is steadily feeling more and more uncomfortable with the whole thing, but if Morse just got back sooner, he wouldn’t have this problem. It’s not _his_ fault some of the lads wanted to watch. It’s just a laugh, anyway, and Morse is almost too easy to laugh at. With. Same thing.

Williams very not-subtly shushes everyone at Morse goes to sit at his desk, and they all fall about laughing as he sees his picture in the papers. He just freezes for half a second, a furious blush appearing across his cheeks, and then chucks the newspaper in the bin by his desk with a huff. Peter doesn’t so much as crack a smile. For whatever reason, he doesn’t find it funny at all.

He gestures for the lads to get back to work, or just piss off, as he grabs a stack of crime scene photos from his desk and starts to walk towards Morse. He doesn’t feel bad about it. He doesn’t.

“You got that car theft written up yet?” He says, by way of greeting, and is met with silence. So that’s a no, then. Whatever he might’ve felt is immediately replaced by annoyance. “How’s about you stick to general duties, and let the rough boys deal with the grown-up stuff?” He jabs a pin into the photo of the train yard with slightly too much force, the pin bending beyond use.

“Why did he leave the door open?” Morse says as if Peter hadn’t said anything. “If it wasn't open, she could have lay in there for days before being discovered."

He rolls his eyes — something that is rapidly becoming his default reaction to Morse. “Panicked, hasn't he, once he's done her. Fled the scene and forgot to shut it after him.”

“It's reckless. Don't you think?”

“He made a mistake,” he says through gritted teeth. Not everything has to be so bloody overcomplicated.

“Or he wanted us to find her.”

He does not get paid enough to deal with this. “I don't hear you typing.” He points at Morse, as if scolding a particularly disobedient puppy. “Car theft!”

&

The next day and, to precisely no-one’s surprise, the car theft still hasn’t been written up, largely because Morse decided he had better things to be doing — namely poking around Peter’s fucking crime scene. It’s like he’s physically incapable of following the most basic orders, the most basic being _do your job._ And still he doesn’t fucking listen.

Morse himself is standing by their little crime scene wall, pinning up a new photo: supposedly the inside wall of the train where they found Evelyn Balfour, something painted in a language he neither recognises or understands. It looks a bit French, but that’s about his limit.

"Oon back-ee-o ankera,” he sounds out uncertainly, still none the wiser.

“ _Un bacio ancora,”_ Morse says quickly.

“All right,” he replies defensively. Of bloody course the boy wonder knows how to say it, because he knows _everything_. “So what's it mean?”

From behind them, Thursday says, “‘One kiss more.’ Italian.”

Peter’s never felt more betrayed in his life.

“ _Un bacio ancora_ is Otello's last line in Verdi's opera,” Morse says to no-one in particular.

Oh good. More opera. “So what?”

“He sings it having strangled his wife in a fit of jealousy.” When Peter doesn’t say anything, he continues, “he believes she's given a handkerchief to another officer as a sign of her affections.”

He can’t tell if Morse is actually going anywhere with this or not, and he can feel parts of his brain quietly start to die. “And?”

“His wife's name is Desdemona.” He pauses a little too melodramatically. “The handkerchief stuffed in Evelyn Balfour's mouth was embroidered with the initial D.”

He nearly laughs out loud. “You’re kidding?” Judging by the look on Morse’s face, he is not. “We're not really giving this any weight, are we?” He asks Thursday, sure that he’ll be able to shut Morse up and they all can go back to doing proper police work. And Morse can write up that bloody car theft.

“Interesting, don't you think?”

“Maybe,” he says, in a way that means _no_. “But that could've been written up on the door years ago. More likely we're looking for a bloke called Dave than some bint called Desdemona."

Thursday considers this for a second. “If this is some fancy man she had on the go, it'll have been a spur of the moment thing.”

“Exactly.” _Finally_. The world’s going back to normal. “He's hardly going to hang about writing all that on the door, then sliding it out of view where nobody could find it, is he?”

"It was found,” Morse says insolently.

“Sir?” A constable hands Thursday the phone.

Peter takes a step closer, smirking, and says just quietly enough that the guvnor won’t hear, “It’s not as if anybody normal would think to look there, is it?”

Morse looks like he’s just been slapped, those big, so very blue eyes wide. It’s almost funny how easy it is to upset him. 

“Thursday.” A pause. “Where's this?”

He recognises the tone and steps back away from Morse, turning his attention to Thursday.

Another body on their hands. That’s all they needed.

Thursday sends Morse off to deal with it, because apparently they’re just completely abandoning this whole general duties thing, and tells Peter to go and chase up the results of forensics with a dismissive wave of his hand. Fine. _Fine_. If they don’t have a match yet, he’ll fucking find one, he’ll get the whole of Oxford on file if he has to. He’ll prove how much better he is than General Duties Morse if it kills him.

An hour and the most frustrating conversation he’s ever had in his life later, he’s got a match, and comes scarily close to kissing the Constable he roped in to shift all the boxes of records around out of sheer joy.

He knocks on Thursday’s office door and lets himself in without waiting for a response. To his massive annoyance, Morse is already in there, because of course he is, huddled awkwardly against the wall. Peter wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he stands like a real human being.

“Got a match on a thumbprint off Mrs Balfour's handbag, Sir.” He hands over the paper more than a little bit smugly. “Roy Adamson. Three months suspended for receiving, some nine years back. Runs a builder's yard out towards Headington.” He looks at Morse, voice dripping with scorn, “looks like Othello's in the clear.”

“Right. Fetch the car round.”

They bring Adamson in, no bother; he’s not exactly a criminal mastermind. He confesses to shagging her, although he puts it slightly more awkwardly, but not to killing her. He was never going to, not on his first night anyway. Peter shoves him in cell four and clears off, back to Thursday.

The station is as quiet as to be expected when they’re the last three to leave, but the quiet feels much heavier, much more charged than it normally does. Peter shivers slightly, shifting his cigarette between his hands as he pulls his coat on, leaning against his desk while he waits for the guvnor to get his hat at just the right angle. “Usual time in the morning, is it?”

He hesitates for half a second, and the image of the entire building going up in flames hits Peter like a freight train, knocking the air clean from his lungs, his vision blurring at the edges. “No, you're all right,” he says, deliberately casual. “Morse can fetch me.”

He’s going to burn Oxford to the fucking ground.

Thursday’s talking to Morse, but he can’t hear it, can’t even begin to process the words when this feeling that is so far beyond fury is tearing through him, threatening to reduce him to nothing but ash, smoke choking him until he’s fighting for breath. Morse keeps glancing at him, as if he’s afraid of Peter’s reaction.

This is who’s better than him, is it? A jumpy and jumped-up little ginger college boy who can’t or won’t follow the most basic instructions, who knows all about opera and history and sings in a stupid fucking choir so he _must_ be better than everyone else, everyone else who’s actually had to fucking work and suffer to get where they are now only to have it ripped out from under them and given to someone who’s already got everything on a silver platter. Peter Jakes, pushed to one side again. It’s never, ever fucking _fair._

Thursday sweeps past him, and with one last filthy glare at Morse, he follows. Anger jumps, jagged, around inside his chest, and he can’t get it out of him, can’t fucking do anything about it but turn off the light, leaving Morse in the dark.

He calls Dorothea Frazil from a phone box and tells her everything he can about their serial killer — if Morse wants all the credit, wants the world to know just how smart he is, he’ll fucking have it.

She’s delighted with him, promising to have to published as soon as possible, maybe even in the late edition, and he’ll have his money as soon as possible — buy himself something nice — and that he’s definitely doing the right thing, because the people deserve to know, don’t they, Sergeant?

Peter knows she’s lying; if there’s one thing he knows to be true, it’s never, ever trust a journo. He’s not doing the right thing at all. He’s a copper and he’s breaking the law, it’s just that he doesn’t care. He’s been fucked over by the force one too many times to not get his own back. He just agrees with her and waits for the line to go dead. There’s a newspaper stuffed behind the phone. He thinks about setting it on fire but just shoves it in his pocket instead.

His mind keeps cutting out, entire streets disappearing behind him, his hands look like they belong to someone else, his clothes shrinking around him, cutting into his skin, choking him as he stumbles down a dark alleyway, his shadow distorted and jumping along the brickwork, taking turns at random until he’s met with a dead end in the shape of solid brick wall, a fire escape, a metal bin. He lashes out, his fist connecting with the wall, ripping the skin off his knuckles. It hurts. He does it again. It hurts. He does it again and again until there’s blood dripping down his hand, his knuckles split open, but it doesn’t help. He only stops thinking, only stops feeling during that flash of pain as his fist connects with the brick, then that burning ache after makes it worse.

The newspaper rustles in his coat pocket. If he sets it alight, if he throws it in the bin and lets the whole thing go up in flames, it’ll stop, he’ll be alright, he’ll be okay if it, if he, just _burns_.

The fire is spreading before he even realises what he’s done, scorching flames consuming the rubbish whole, flickering lights and lurid shadows dancing in perverse delight all around him.

Relief washes over him, quelling the fire, letting him think straight. He takes what feels like his first breath in days. Hands still trembling, he lights a cigarette off the flames that are starting to sink lower and lower down. When the fire slowly flickers and dies, he replaces the bin lid and leaves as quickly and as subtly as he can. The rage has burnt itself out, leaving him hollow with something like regret. He doesn’t want to think about it. He wants a fucking _drink_.

&

The next day drags itself along and Bright turns up at the station with some bloke he introduces as Dr Cronyn, psychiatrist. Dr Cronyn, psychiatrist, doesn’t look like what Peter assumed all psychiatrists look like — he just looks normal. Like most people, he’s quite a lot taller than Bright, with neatly combed hair, a sharply ironed suit, and highly polished shoes. He shakes Peter’s hand, his fingers strangely calloused, making a very not-funny joke about the state of Peter’s knuckles, still raw and bruised from the night before, as Bright introduces them, and smiles.

And although Dr Cronyn, psychiatrist, goes through all the right motions, pulls all the right expressions, Peter can’t shake the feeling something is wrong. A few years back, when he was still a DC (when he was still so sure he was the butt of every joke), he would’ve jumped on it, pushed Dr Cronyn until he cracked, but now he writes it off as paranoia, a bad night’s sleep, detective’s intuition gone wrong. Also, there’s a very high chance that Dr Cronyn is just a bit of a twat. Coupled with his own extremely limited patience for so-called academics (and the fact he’s more than slightly hungover), it’s not surprising Peter finds himself dead against Dr Cronyn, psychiatrist, barely seconds after meeting him.

This is only intensifies when Cronyn refuses the tea Peter so generously made for him, in one of the nice cups that the uniforms aren’t allowed to touch. He’s a Detective Sergeant, for christ’s sakes, not a fucking barmaid. He doesn’t make random nice cups of tea for fun.

Thursday raises an eyebrow at him from behind Cronyn that very clearly says _get over it._

Whilst he thinks it would be quite funny to make a massive song and dance about it, to be unbelievably childish and to make dead eye contact with Cronyn while slowly pouring the tea down the sink, he doesn’t particularly fancy getting backhanded into next month. May as well have it himself, then.

Cuppa in dully aching hand, he sets himself down next to Bright and mentally steels himself for another one of Oxford’s great weirdos.

Cronyn studies the crime scene photos closely in silence for a while. He doesn’t quite react properly — most people at least wince, but he just gets closer, regarding the dead women with an interest that just brushes the edge of too much. “The perpetrator of these crimes clearly exhibits a profoundly disturbed psyche.”

Well, there’s a shocker. Who would’ve thought: a serial killer being a complete nutcase? They better not be paying him for this.

“Indeed,” Morse says sarkily from the edge of the room. Peter takes a sip of his tea to disguise his smirk.

“I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know.” He says hurriedly, but there’s a tension in his body that wasn’t there before, the very slightest shift in posture that would be invisible to anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for. To be fair to the man, though, Morse does that to everyone. “What may be less obvious to you, perhaps, is that he will also be highly functioning. Which, I regret to say, will make him very difficult to apprehend.”

Brilliant. Just what he wanted to hear.

Clearly thinking the same thing, Bright asks, “But not impossible?”

“Such cases are few and far between over here, but my colleagues in the United States believe this kind of killer is something of a coming trend."

“A trend?” Bright’s voice is so strained Peter nearly offers him a cigarette. Nearly. No real cigarettes for the menthol man.

“Indeed.” There’s something in Cronyn’s eyes that Peter can’t place but doesn’t like. “Within the last ten years we've had the Starkweather case, the bodies in the swamp at Fairvale and DeSalvo in Boston.”

“What's he after? What's behind him?” Thursday asks, sounding nearly as bad as Bright.

“Impossible to say. Other than he conforms to the triad personality of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy posited by McDonald a couple of years back.”

Peter understands maybe about half of that — but what else is there to understand? There’s a deranged murderer running around and they need to catch him. They don’t need a bloody psychiatrist to tell them that.

“I'd expect him to be highly intelligent. Though this may not necessarily be reflected in academic achievements,” Cronyn adds hurriedly.

“How old?”

“Mid-20s to mid-30s. 40 at a push.”

Jesus, anyone could’ve told them that — and DeBryn probably did at some point. Where did Bright even find this bloke?

“There's no possibility this could be the end of it?”

“Gentlemen, you're confronting a mind unconstrained by notions of guilt, regret, right and wrong, good and evil. So far as he's concerned, we're just... prey.”

“Prey?” Morse pipes up, finally interested.

It takes everything Peter has in him to not to turn around and look at Morse, to try and gauge his reaction properly instead of just having to rely on the sound of his voice and the quiet rustle of uncomfortable movement.

"In his eyes.” Cronyn is fighting back a smile, fighting it well but Peter doesn’t miss it, like this is all some big joke. “Kine… reared to slaughter.”

“We'll stop him,” Morse says, determined, getting to his feet.

“How? You think you’re going to appeal to his nobler instincts, his better angels?” The smile is in his voice now, sly and subtle and mocking, like Morse’s (for once) righteous determination is _funny_.

Peter slides his now-empty cup onto the desk in front of him, fighting the urge to snap at Cronyn. They aren’t going to appeal to his anything; they’re going to fucking lock him up.

“He doesn't have any. The only thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is he will kill again.”

So that cheers the group up.

They can’t just have a normal serial killer, can they? No, instead they just have to have the only other bloke on the planet who actually likes opera, and thinks that makes him cleverer and better than everyone else, decide he fancies a light bit of murder of an evening. And they couldn’t just have a normal expert come in, either, it had to be Dr Cronyn, psychiatrist, with his whole host of insane ideas pulled out of absolutely nowhere and getting away with it because he went to university.

Because this is Oxford. And he’s surrounded by twats.

They get the call out to the slaughterhouse about an hour after Thursday leaves, dragging Morse along with him. Unfortunately, it seems Cronyn was right. Their man has killed again, this time walling up some poor sod, Ben Nimmo, in his own cellar and leaving him to die. Profoundly disturbed psyche in-fucking-deed. Peter chain-smokes the whole way there.

The slaughterhouse itself is fucking dismal, lonely and dilapidated, a fine layer of dust settled over everything like a shroud. It even looks like the sort of place where somebody would, as a random example, get bricked up in a cellar and left to die.

He notices Morse talking to Strange, that fervour in his eyes visible even from where Peter’s standing, and rolls his eyes. Then he notices Cronyn getting out of Bright’s car, walking towards Thursday, and rolls his eyes again, harder. He knows who he’d rather be with, and doesn’t particularly like the answer.

“Look sharp, then, Morse.” He says, flicking ash deliberately all over Morse’s trousers. “It's the competition. Somebody with even more crackpot ideas than you.”

Morse just glowers at him and tries to brush the ash off, getting grey streaks everywhere. Strange goes to say something, but is silenced by Thursday sweeping past and, not for the first time, telling them to _get on with it._

He doesn’t see the corpse, but he can smell it. He can smell the rot bleeding through the very walls.

They search the place, looking for the killer even though they all well know he’s long gone, and looking for anything that might lead them to him.

There’s a room branching all the others in the basement, and it seems darker and quieter than the others, despite the lights and general commotion. The atmosphere feels heavier inside it, and closer, like the walls are painfully slowly but painfully surely moving in. Peter shines his torch around, braced for someone (or something) to pounce on him, but nothing comes. He shakes his head, smirking slightly. Afraid of the dark now, is he? The torch light sweeps around the room one last time, then freezes.

His first though is that it looks like a shrine, but there are no crosses, no candles, no saints. Instead there are masks, intricately painted, beaded, feathered, long, disjointed shadows dancing hypnotically with the torch beam; and a cloud of show tickets and sheet music, stuck haphazardly around the centrepiece. A carefully cut-out picture from a newspaper. The one of Morse.

A slow kind of panic spreads through him.

A shrine. The room seems darker, despite the torch light. He doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare take his eyes off it. A shrine to what, exactly? Opera, death, and Morse. There’s an irony in that somewhere, but it’s shrouded in the arrogance of a killer — like it’s a shrine to what he’s done, to what he’s going to do; a shrine to himself. He’s already killed, and he will do it again and again, gleefully.

Three people dead. Three people dead to draw them in, to get everyone involved, to lead them here. Morse’s picture the centrepiece. Three people dead to get to Morse.

He leaves slowly, barely able to look away.

He finds Thursday, Morse hovering close, where he left them. “Something you should see, Sir. Through here. You too, Morse.” He doesn’t mean to say his name so softly, almost apologetically, but he does.

The room is a tight fit with the three of them, and it seems darker and smaller than ever. He shines the torch up against the wall, illuminating the shrine. He risks a glance at Morse — he looks like he’s about to drop dead.

“Looks like you've got an admirer.”

Unfortunately for them, the day carries on, and just existing is starting to feel like crawling over broken glass. Peter stares into space, flicking his lighter on and off. What the fuck is he meant to _do?_

Almost as soon as Morse figures out the pattern behind the murders — EGBDF, musical notes and the first letters of the victims’ names — they get the call, and Peter’s blood turns to ice.

A mother, weeping uncontrollably. A father with an arm around her shoulders and tears in his eyes. The little red shoe feels so unbearably heavy in Peter’s hands.

He walks to the room where Bright and Thursday are, Morse close behind, like a shadow.

“Debbie Snow, Sir. Six years old.” He puts Debbie’s shoe down on the table, his brain shifting from Peter to Detective Sergeant Jakes. “Taken from the street outside her house. Description's been circulated to all cars and foot patrols."

“It's him,” Morse says, voice aching, and Peter knows it’s true.

“We can't say that,” Bright replies, clearly willing himself to believe it. But they’re all coppers, they all know to expect the worst. “Just because her name begins with a D.”

“There's more than that, Sir,” Morse says. For once, Peter doesn’t care. As long as he knows how to get Debbie back, he does not care. “The translator from Lonsdale identified the score sent to Miss Frazil as _Snegurochka_ by Rimsky-Korsakov. _Snegurochka_ is Russian for Snowmaiden."

“Somebody dies, presumably,” Thursday says.

“The Snowmaiden herself. She melts.” He crosses his arms, seeming to fold in on himself. “At dawn. As the sun rises.”

_She melts._

Strangled, poisoned, walled up. _She melts_. Oh god. Six years old. Her mum sobbing and her dad trying to be brave. Six years old. Oh _god_.

Thursday picks up the shoe, turning it over and over in his hands.

“Something stuffed down in the toe, according to Uniform,” Peter manages to say, gripping the table so hard he’s faintly surprised it doesn’t splinter under his hands.

It’s crumpled up bit of paper, another one of those scores. Printed across it carefully, in bright red letters, are the words _NO ALIBI ERR BADLY,_ and immediately underneath it, _NEAR BY LIBRA IDOL._

“ _No alibi err badly._ What the hell does that mean?” Bright asks no-one in particular.

“Maybe he's saying we've made a mistake, Sir. One of the people we've seen in relation to the other killings. Someone without an alibi, or…” Peter trails off. Six years old. Oh _god_.

“ _Near by Libra idol._ Some kind of direction, perhaps?”

“He's setting us a test,” Morse suddenly says.

“What sort of test?” Peter asks, thinking that if Morse solves this now, he’ll never, ever say another bad word to him for the rest of time.

“It's a game.” Morse swallows. “Solve the puzzle, save the child.”

He stares at the words chalked up on the little blackboard, taunting him. Morse is scribbling something down, Thursday standing close by him.

“‘Near by Libra idol’? Libra is the Scales, Sir. Justice, maybe? The idol could be a statue by the Law Courts,” Peter suggests.

“Think you can you crack it?” Thursday asks Morse, as if Peter hadn’t spoken. A spark from his lighter, a spark of something ugly deep inside him.

“I can try,” Morse says.

“Try?” Peter snaps, anger like fire starting to spread through him, his blood catching light. “You need to do more than try.”

"All right, Jakes. That'll do.” Thursday says, defending Morse even now, and Peter’s not just angry, he’s fucking _livid_. He’s their guvnor, he’s meant to have some fucking _sense_ , but it’s like he’s completely blind to it, completely blind to everything when Morse is involved.

“Meant to be the expert, isn't he?” He takes a couple of steps towards them. Six years old. And she’ll be dead if Morse can’t crack it. “Laughing boy's pin-up.”

“I said _that'll do_.”

He turns to Thursday, blood long past boiling. “I’m thinking of the kiddie, Sir.”

“Us turning on each other’s going to help find her, is it? Exactly what he wants.”

“It's Morse these messages are meant for, Sir. We all know that. He's seen his picture in the paper.”He’s killed three people, each death worse than the last, and now he’s going to kill this little girl, and her last moments will be agonising, and it’s all to get to Morse. _She melts._ Debbie Snow, six years old, is going to die if they don’t find her in under twelve hours and it’s all Morse’s fault. Peter’s going to wring his little spindly fucking neck. “One bloody misfit talking to another.”

“About your business, Sergeant.” Thursday’s furious, too, but at him. He would have rather just been slapped.

He turns on his heel, stalks past his desk and straight out the nick without looking back.

They search for hours. They search until it gets dark. They don’t find her.

 _She melts_.

Peter periodically vanishes into the locker room to burn little things, old receipts, scrap paper — no time to set something properly alight — trying to alleviate some of the tension, trying to find the tiniest sliver of relief so his head’ll start working again, and they can find little Debbie. Six years old. _She melts_. The paper in his hand curls away from the flame, but catches anyway, devoured by light. The fire sinks its sharp, bright fangs into his fingers, and he can only stare in horror. _She melts._ Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god.

They get a call about an hour later. _Officer down_. They don’t say who it is. Peter spends what feels like hours pacing up and down, up and down, endlessly smoking, caught between Morse’s empty desk and the blackboard.

_NO ALIBI ERR BADLY — NEAR BY LIRBA IDOL_

Debbie Snow. _She melts._

Morse is still nowhere to be seen.

A constable dumps out an armload of stuff onto a table — a hat, glasses, fake beard, and a large, black shoulder bag with a score inside, the letters carefully printed in black this time.

“Uniform recovered this lot from a bin on Catte Street by the library,” Peter says, handing the paper over to Bright. “Another one of them score things.”

Bright does that old person thing of holding the paper further away then bringing it back closer, and reads out, “Some coppers have no brains. All coppers are bastards."

Just as Peter is convinced Morse is dead, the stupid little ginger prick turns up, no tie on and looking like he’s just been dragged through a hedge backwards, and Peter nearly passes out with relief. And as wonderful as it is hearing Bright say _all coppers are bastards,_ there are clearly slightly more pressing issues at hand. Namely that Morse has been fucking stabbed.

Kept that one quiet, didn’t he?

He’s very obviously trying not to look at the massive bloodstain, now painfully visible without his jacket, soaking his shirt, but his eyes keep darting down towards it, or catching it in the flimsy half-reflection of the clear office divide.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Peter says exasperatedly, getting to his feet, after seeing Morse glimpse his bloodied reflection and wince for the ninetieth time in about ten minutes. Thursday shoots him a look that he decisively chooses to ignore. “Come on, Morse.”

“Come on what?” Morse asks warily.

“Just come on, will you?”

Maybe he isn’t actually as stupid as he looks, because he does as he’s told. For once.

The locker room feels a lot smaller now, the light a little dimmer, the air closer. He watches Morse watch himself button up Peter’s spare shirt in the mirror and feels… something. Something he can’t quite place. Something he doesn’t particularly _want_ to place. He takes a drag of his cigarette. He should look away, really, but he doesn’t. He rests his head gently against the wall, unsure of how exactly to say _glad you’re not dead_ without it sounding like he particularly gives a shit. Because he shouldn’t, really, but keeps finding that he does.

Morse turns to him, catching his eye and without thinking, he says, “I want it back, clean, starched and pressed.” And, to be fair, he does. That shirt cost him slightly more than he’d like to admit, but he just wanted something nice. Morse just tucks his shirt in, wincing as he brushes over his wound. Something in Peter softens and before he can stop himself he’s asking, “you sure you're fit for duty?”

“Yeah. It looks much worse than it feels,” he replies flippantly. His arms drop down to his sides and he hisses in pain. He’s such an unbelievably bad liar. “What did I miss?”

“The Ice Cream Man's been found,” Peter tells him, lighting up and taking a short, sharp drag. “He thinks - only thinks, mind - he saw a girl answering Debbie’s description talking to a man. Beard. Glasses. Walking stick.”

Morse just nods, once, and disappears out the door. And Peter is left alone (again).

“Thanks, Jakes,” he mutters to himself in a poor imitation of Morse’s voice. “Thanks a lot.”

The night drags on, crawling towards the morning, towards the dawn - _she melts_ \- and they’ve gotten nowhere. No leads, no clues, just endless circling around nothing. He and Thursday sit around his desk, staring at the scores or just into nothing, in silence. Peter flicks his lighter on and off, on and off, on and off until it won’t come on anymore. Finding Debbie before dawn, in just a few hours, with nothing to go off but some cryptic clues that not even Morse, who has fucking vanished _again_ , can make sense of, is rapidly becoming more and more unlikely. But they will find her. They have to find her.

Thursday’s writing something down, occasionally ripping out pages, screwing them up and throwing it into the bin by the desk. One misses and lands by Peter’s feet. He tries to ignore it, but it gets the better of him. Keeping his eyes on Thursday, making sure he doesn’t notice, he reaches down, fingertips brushing against the floor until they bump up against the tightly crumpled ball of paper. He picks it up, slowly and unfurls on his lap.

It’s the beginnings of a letter, maybe even a speech, addressed to a Mr and Mrs Snow, expressing sincere apologies. For a second, Peter doesn’t understand. Then it clicks. He wishes it didn’t.

He runs a hand through his hair, leaning as far back as his chair will allow him and letting the paper float to the floor. Six years old. And they’ve already failed her — what’s new? He wants to laugh and he feels like crying.

The clock ticks maddeningly, so much louder than Peter has ever remembered it being.

“We're not gonna make it, are we?”

Thursday doesn’t say anything, but his silence is enough. They aren’t.

The phone on his desk rings and he nearly jumps out of his skin, hands suddenly unsure and jittery until Thursday shouts at him to answer it. The second he picks it up, Morse is speaking, his words falling over each other and he can just about understand _church, now!_

He and Thursday are out the door before Morse can even hang up.

They screech to a halt outside the church, lights and music blaring, and swiftly moving towards Morse.

“The riddle the killer set was a Bocardo syllogism,” Morse explains breathlessly as they pace towards the church doors.

“Bocardo?” Peter snaps, fighting the urge to start sprinting.

“That's the key. The word Bocardo, not the syllogism. I knew there was another Bocardo connection to Oxford but I couldn't place it until I passed the Memorial on the Broad.”

“The Martyrs' memorial?” Thursday asks.

"Prior to being burnt at the stake, all three were in the Bocardo Prison.”

“In Oxford? Never heard of it.” But he doesn’t care. If Debbie really is in that church, he doesn’t care about anything else.

“It used to stand here by St Michael at the North Gate. The Martyrs' cell door is on display in the Church Tower. Right?”

“Yes, sir.”

The doors judders open as they force their way through, Peter’s eyes sweeping wildly through the dark pews, searching for any sign of movement. He finds himself praying, silently screaming at God to just _let her be alright._

The altar. Hundreds of candles lit, burning bright, twisted shadows climbing up the walls, laughing cruelly in a thousand shades of puzzles and dead girls and YOU’RE TOO LATE - _she melts_ \- and a tiny coffin - _she melts_ \- he’s running towards it before he even realises, Thursday shouting _get it open!_ A frantic struggle, clawing at the wood, desperate for any kind of movement, any noise from inside the coffin - please, please God don’t let them be too late - Morse opposite him, Thursday between them, and the coffin lid starts to slide open, and Peter nearly bursts into tears, nearly collapses on the spot.

Debbie Snow, six years old.

_Alive._

Once Debbie is safely back in her mum’s arms, Peter goes back to the nick, drinks half of his emergency whiskey in one go, and promptly passes out on his desk.

He stays like that, blissfully numb to the world, until the phone rings, loud and shrill, jolting him awake. There’s been a body found.

Just someone else they couldn’t save.

The smell inside the room is _appalling,_ so thick and heavy Peter chokes on it, the air stiff with the scent of singed hair, chlorine, and flesh burnt beyond help.

And the body isn’t much better. Even Thursday winces, looking anywhere but.

He’d been tied down to a coffee table of some kind, a huge jar of something green positioned over him on a step ladder, his hands and face steaming slightly. The man’s face is burned beyond recognition, his skin a tight, uneven patchwork of furious red and black where it hasn’t sloughed off altogether, his eyes partially melted into his skull, bits of bone glinting dully beneath the simmering blood and exposed muscle. His mouth, or at least what Peter thinks might’ve been his mouth, hangs limply open, revealing a mess of yellow teeth and bloodied gums, his tongue full of little black holes. It reminds him of something, faintly but urgently, although he’s not sure what.

Peter decides he can only really do two things: not breath through his nose, and try not to be sick.

“Cronyn?” Thursday asks DeBryn.

“Given the condition of the corpus, there's not a great deal I can tell you. Beyond, of course, that life is extinct.”

“Who found the body?”

“Phillip Madison, sir, and his sister Faye turned up for a nine o'clock session with the doctor and, well…” Peter gestures helplessly at the desecrated corpse.

Thursday gets closer to the evil-smelling green liquid, quickly stepping back as DeBryn says, “I'd advise you to stand well clear, Inspector. Until we can get it safely stoppered.”

“Acid?"

 _“Aqua regia,_ by the smell. Royal water. Nitro-hydrochloric acid.”

“Hence the state of him.”

DeBryn sighs. “From the green tinge, the container was sealed with a brass bung. Acid would've eaten through that in about an hour.

“And poured out onto his head.”

And then Peter realises. “Melted. Like the Snow Maiden.” Jesus wept.

“It wasn't Debbie, it was Daniel.” Morse says, voice hoarse. “Daniel Cronyn. EGBD.”

Thursday looks at them all, one by one. “Then we need to find whoever F is before the killer does.”

Normally, he would’ve thought up some sarcastic little remark to pretend he said when he’d regale the lads down the pub, but he’s so tired nothing comes to him.

He spends the rest of the day staring at the reports on his desk, at the crime scene photos all over the walls, and focuses on trying not to die.

When his shift finally ends — no closer to finding the killer — he goes straight home. Fuck the pub (which is, admittedly, not something he’d ever thought he’d say). He’s got beer at home. And some bread. He thinks. He’s not too fussed about that, though. No, all his thoughts are on his bed. He’s going to have a shower, he’s going to put some clean clothes on, and he’s going to go to _bed_.

By the time he gets to his flat, he’s so lost in his fantasy of lying down he nearly steps on the cat.

The cat is, understandably, not impressed.

Neither is he, to be fair. Largely because this cat, little scraggly ginger thing that is, is sprawled out on the doorstep, which wouldn’t be so bad on its own, but it keeps hissing and taking swipes at Peter’s legs when he tries to lean over and unlock the door.

On the third try, he doesn’t move fast enough and the cat tangles its claws into his trousers, clinging on as he steps back. Had it been any other day, he would’ve just pulled it off, or try to scare it away, but with his day being what it was (namely a complete, unending shitshow), he just sighs and lets the cat sink its claws in. It doesn’t hurt that much, anyway. Weirdly enough, the second his key turns in the lock and he pushes the door open, the cat darts inside, instantly out of sight. He figures it must belong to the unbelievably old woman in the flat next to his own; she’s probably the only one who could reasonably get away with ignoring the _no pets, ever_ part of their contract. Seriously, the woman must’ve seen the rise and fall of entire worlds. And she’s so scary she was probably the downfall of half of them. He has no idea how she manages all the stairs.

 _He_ can barely bloody manage the stairs today, practically passing out by the time he gets to his floor. He hears a faint meow and ignores it. Let Deaf Diane deal with her not-really-legal nightmare cat. His key jams in the lock, _again_ , and he hears the meowing once more, more insistent and much louder. He glances down the corridor. Nothing.

Weird.

He struggles with the key for a second before giving up and just hitting it as hard as he can. It hurts like an absolute bitch, but it works, the door cracking open. He hears the meow again, looks down, and swears out loud — the cat is sat right by his feet, flicking its tail, looking up at him with expectant yellow eyes.

“What?” He asks it.

Unsurprisingly, it does not respond. Probably would’ve been weirder if it did.

“What?” He asks again.

It blinks at him, then starts pawing at the door.

“You can’t come in,” he tells it, trying to position himself between the door and the cat itself. It does not work. He pulls the door shut again, the cat’s nose wrinkling in annoyance. “You can’t. Not allowed pets, am I?”

The cat just starts licking its paw, and Peter comes to a realisation.

“I’m talking to a cat,” he mutters. As far as realisations go, it’s not exactly groundbreaking, but it does come with the implication that he has, in fact, gone mental. Which is always nice.

The cat meows at him, somehow annoyed, if cats can be annoyed.

“You can’t come in,” he repeats, slower, as if talking slowly will help a fucking cat understand English.

The cat stares at him, big yellow eyes unblinking, and he stares right back, refusing to be the first man in history to lose a staring contest with a _cat_. It’s ridiculous, he knows it is, and maybe he’s just so tired everything seems funnier than it actually is, but he starts laughing. He’s interrogated murderers with less resolve that this scruffy little ginger fucker. The cat wrinkles its nose at him again, and he notices that it’s actually quite cute.

Suddenly, Deaf Diane’s door swings open, slamming into the wall with the sheer force behind it, and Peter practically throws himself into his flat. He’s not ashamed of it. Braver men than him have done more to avoid a conversation with Deaf Diane. He looks around for an orange, cat-shaped bundle of fluff to point out how much of a close call _that_ was, but he can’t see it anywhere.

He’s not disappointed, as such, but it’s near enough.

After nearly falling asleep in the shower (twice), he gets as far as pulling on an old t-shirt, massively baggy and threadbare — something he’d not be caught dead wearing in public — and a pair of boxers before crawling into bed, out like a light the second his head hits the pillow.

The station is on fire. Peter is trapped inside. He is going to die.

The smoke is so thick he can barely breathe, the flames devouring everything in their path, it’s dark, so dark and so unbearably hot he can barely think, barely move, can’t even see his hand stretched out right in front of his face. He blindly stumbles forwards, and trips over something, something solid but yielding. He looks down. It’s Bright. He only knows it’s Bright because of the scraps of uniform that are fused to his body - his _corpse_ \- his face is burned beyond recognition, chunks of his skull dully glinting in the flickering firelight. Peter opens his mouth to scream, then he looks past Bright and sees Strange, Williams, Frazil, every single person he’s ever known, dead the same way as Bright, all burned, melted together in a line that stretches out into forever.

He runs.

Two figures in the doorway, blocking his way out. He staggers towards them, choking on the smoke, tears streaming down his face. He’s screaming, desperately calling for help, but they can’t hear him, but they’re looking straight at him — then he realises. They can hear him. They just don’t care.

He gets closer and it’s Thursday, it’s Morse, utterly untouched by the flames, cruel smiles on their faces. _Help me_ , he chokes, reaching out to grab at Thursday’s sleeve, _help me!_

Morse’s thin fingers wrap around his wrist, his nails digging into Peter’s skin, and he feels like he’s six years old again, feet dragging helplessly against highly polished wood. Thursday just laughs. Peter turns to Morse for help, the flames starting to tear into his back, and Morse just shakes his head, like it’s all a big joke, his eyes so very blue and so very cruel.

And Peter knows. He started the fire himself. It’s his fault. It’s all his fault.

Thursday shoves him, hard, in the chest, and he stumbles back into building, the floor giving way underneath him and he falls down, down, down —

He wakes up in a cold sweat to the sound of something scratching at his window, the smoke and the flames whispered away. He lies still for a moment, wondering if he’s about to be murdered. When nobody breaks in, he flicks on his bedside lamp, the illuminating his room with a warm glow, sweeping away the last few embers of his bad dream, and turns to face his alarm. It’s entirely too fucking early. He closes his eyes and tries to get back to sleep, but the scratching just gets louder.

Groaning, he stumbles out of bed and over to the window, thoughts sleepily incoherent but somewhere along the lines of _please don’t kill me,_ twitching the curtains back to reveal—

It’s that fucking cat again.

“What do you want now?” He asks, then realises the cat probably can’t hear him, so he opens the window, then realises that cats can’t speak English regardless. Christ, he needs to go back to bed. “What?” He asks again.

The cat pokes its tongue out the tiniest bit, and Peter smiles despite himself. It really is quite cute.

“I don’t have any food,” he warns, drifting through his flat and towards his fridge. And he doesn’t, unless this specific cat is a big fan of beer, tomatoes, and very stale bread, which he doubts. He’s still got a fair bit left over from Frazil, he’ll do his big shop tomorrow. Or soon, anyway. “I’ve got milk,” he calls out. “You lot like milk, right?”

“Yeah,” he says to himself, pouring a little out into the smallest bowl he can find. He’s not really a saucer kind of man, not at when he’s at home. “Cats like milk.”

The cat is still on the windowsill when he slowly walks back into his bedroom, bowl of milk in hand.

“Will that do you?” He asks, putting the bowl out in front of it, watching it sniff at and then lap up the milk, getting it everywhere. “Messy little thing, aren’t you?” He says, almost fondly, reaching out to stroke its little head.

The cat pulls back, sniffing at his fingers, then gently headbutts the back of his hand, purring. Its fur is so _soft_. “Do you have a name? Or is it just Cat?” He gently scratches between its ears.

Cat says nothing, just purrs.

“Cat is is, then.” And Cat stretches out, back arching, seemingly in agreement.

“Girl or boy cat?” He asks, and Cat just looks at him like he’s stupid. He knows that look very well. “Girl cat.”

Below them, Oxford quietly carries on, oblivious. The night is still, save for the occasional car passing, tyres rasping against tarmac, the moon just about shining through the clouds, bathing everything in wispy silver. Oxford sleeps as the world turns, a city huddled down until sunrise, unaware of and yet the centre of everything.

Cat suddenly turns, deaf to Peter’s _you off, then?_ and leaps onto another windowsill, springing onto the fire escape and taking the steps two at a time until she hits the ground running and disappears.

“Night, Cat,” Peter says, a small, sleepy-soft smile on his face as he closes the window, bringing the bowl back inside, pulls the curtains closed, and drops back onto his bed, slipping into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

&

Morning brings yet another fun-filled day of trying to track down a deranged serial killer. Morse has gathered them - Bright, Thursday, Peter - around; apparently the killer called him, which pisses Peter off to no end. The arrogance of this man is fucking astounding. He makes Morse seem meek and humble in comparison.

Once Morse has their attention, he goes straight into it, which makes a change. “He played a record. Tosca.”

Good thing they all know what _that_ is, then. “Tosca?”

“It's a penny dreadful of a plot. Filled with murder, torture, suicide.”

“Right up his street, then,” Peter remarks dryly.

“At the climax, the heroine, Floria Tosca, hurls herself from the battlements of the _Castel Sant’Angelo_."

“In summation, then,” Bright starts, and Peter finds himself bristling at his tone. “Apart from method by which he means to dispose of this fifth and final victim, we know neither the where, the when, nor the whom of it.”

“If the killer's sticking to Morse's EGBDF pattern, Sir,” He starts, much to Morse’s surprise (and much to his own). “It’s got to be someone whose name begins with an F.”

Bright sighs and Morse falls silent. He clicks his pen twice, then realisation dawns over his face.

"It's Cronyn,” he says.

“What is?” Peter asks.

"The murderer. It's Cronyn.”

“I appreciate your work on this, but I think you'll find —” Bright starts.

Morse cuts him off, “Dr Cronyn approached us, didn't he, sir?”

“Yes, but he —”

He paces towards the blackboard, grabbing the nearest bit of chalk. “He’s the one had us running around looking for this Keith Miller.” As he says it, he quickly scrawls out _KEITH MILLER_.

Thursday, with a sideways glance at Bright, says, “But Morse —”

“It's a joke, Sir. A blind. Keith Miller doesn't exist, Sir.” He starts writing again. “Rearrange the letters of his name and you get…”

“ _I'm the killer_ ,” Peter reads weakly. Oh fucking _hell_.

"He's been toying with us, right from the beginning… posing as Dr Cronyn.”

His hands, too calloused for an academic. Getting too close to and too interested in the crime scene photos. That little, mocking smile when he described them all as prey. Shit. _Shit_. He was right to be uneasy. And what sane person refuses a decent fucking cuppa?

“So who is he really?” Bright asks, a faint note of panic in his voice.

“Mason Gull, Sir.”

“Good grief.”

Thursday stares in subdued horror. “Then whose body did we find in Cronyn's consulting rooms?”

After a brief, frantic search through their records, Morse is driving at breakneck speed towards Daniel Cronyn’s, the real Daniel Cronyn’s, house, Peter giving directions from the backseat, pointing out shortcuts where he sees them.

A few minutes of sharp turns and the painful anxiety that they’ve missed it, the house looms into view, hollow and crumbling, the garden completely overrun with weeds, the patchy, browning grass shuddering in the breeze.

“Are you sure this is it?” Thursday says, meaning _we don’t have time for you to have fucked this up._

“Outside of the rooms in town, it's the only other address for a Daniel Cronyn showing on the Electoral Register,” Peter replies, already out the car.

He tests the front door — locked. He automatically glances back at Thursday, gets the nod, and slams his shoulder into it with all the force he can muster, and it swings wide open, bouncing back off the inside wall, a few flakes of paint sticking to his jacket. He brushes them off as he walks inside.

The house is gloomy inside, a little too dark and a little too heavy to be comfortable, but it’s clearly been lived in, and recently at that. The air is still, almost oppressive, like the calm before the storm.

“He's been here,” Peter says, looking around the living room, half-expecting Gull to come running at him with a knife.

“Of course he has,” says Morse from the doorway. “This has been his bolt hole.”

Thursday picks up a framed photo from the mantelpiece and brushes some of the dust off. “Doctor Cronyn, I presume. The real Daniel Cronyn.”

Peter follows Morse upstairs, still not entirely trusting the latter’s luck regarding creaky floorboards. They both pause on the landing, listening intently for any sign of life. Nothing. Peter doesn’t know whether it’s a relief or a disappointment.

Morse treads lightly towards the only ajar door, both them holding their breath at the slightest noise. He pushes the door open, taking a cautious step inside, and when there’s no scuffle, no cry for help, no collapsing floorboards, Peter follows him.

The first thing he notices is just how disgusting the wallpaper is — floral patterned in yellow and pink that manages to look simultaneously like mould and vomit. Then, an unmade double bed shoved into the far corner of the room, the sheets rumpled and splattered with dried blood, a pair of handcuffs hanging limply from the headboard. At the foot of the bed, a nightstand neatly piled with medical supplies. He doesn’t even want to think of the implications.

Luckily for him, Morse has no problem spelling it out. “He’s kept him drugged on morphine. Far enough out so that nobody could hear his screams.”

He suppresses a shudder. “Why not just kill him straightaway?”

“Because the body at the consulting rooms had to be fresh.”

And he’s out the room, taking the stairs two at a time. Fuck that.

They systematically take the living room apart, looking for even the vaguest indication of where he might’ve been, who he might go for next; Morse rummaging through the boxes pushed up against the far wall, Peter going over the photos and books on the desk with a fine-toothed comb, and Thursday sat at the little table, scanning through page after page of what Peter thinks might be court documents.

Thursday clears his throat, then reads out, “'The murder of Mrs Gull was investigated by Detective Inspector Foxley of Oxford City Police. Two witnesses appeared for the prosecution - slaughterman Benjamin Nimmo, who had dropped by the inn for a pint of ale and found the body of Mrs Gull, and barmaid Gertrude Tate, who was there with her eight-year-old daughter Evelyn.’”

“What's the odds Mr Balfour will confirm his wife's maiden name was Tate?” Peter cuts in darkly.

“‘The case was heard by His Honour Mr Justice Madison’. Gull's been killing anyone connected with the trial."

“He's going after Faye Madison. Now. F for Faye — She's the fifth victim!” Morse says, panic-stricken. “We need to get officers to Alfredus College at once. _That’s_ why Gull played me Tosca over the telephone. Alfredus College is home to The Oxford Scholars Choral Association. The choir that I sing with,” he clarifies.

“So where does Tosca come in?” Peter asks forcefully, stammering slightly, Morse’s panic infectious.

“The Oxford Scholars Choral Association.” He flinches slightly. “We sometimes refer to it by acronym. TOSCA."

 _Shit_.

The car screeches to a halt outside Alfredus College, right behind Bright’s car. They move quickly, almost in canon, Thursday getting out first, then Peter, then Morse.

“Reserves are on their way,” Bright informs them, frighteningly calm as he neatly falls into step beside Thursday as they pace towards the entrance. “Think he'll come? He must know we'll be waiting for him.”

Peter walks as fast as he can without running, lengthening his stride so much Morse has to break into a jog to catch up with him. In literally any other situation, it would be funny.

“Oh, he knows all right.”

“Then how can you be sure?”

“This is his grand finale. He's not going to miss this.”

A porter hurries Morse and Thursday inside to where he last saw Faye, leaving Peter to wait anxiously with Bright. A few moments later, Morse comes running back towards them. “Gull’s got her!” He says, gasping for breath. “If he's sticking to the opera's plot, he'll throw her from the roof.”

No time for panic. No time to be scared. They have to save her. They have to save her now.

“Porter says there's a stair at each corner of the quad,” Thursday says, and Peter turns to the one nearest to him, feeling so tightly wound up he could explode at any second.

“I'll wait for the reserve to arrive. He won't get away,” Bright says, and the three of them start running.

The building is huge, an unbelievably vast and complicated maze, so Peter just sticks to the stairs, sprinting up flight after flight. They saved Debbie, they’ll save Faye. He keeps repeating it to himself, chanting it in his head like a mantra, ignoring the burning in his lungs, every syllable a step closer towards her. They saved Debbie, they’ll save Faye. They saved Debbie, they _will_ save Faye.

He reaches the end of the stairs and calls her name, over and over again, frantically turning every which direction, desperately hoping to see some flash of movement, to hear her scream _over here!_ but there’s nothing, nothing but the horrible, heavy feeling that he’s too late, burning and writhing inside him. He punches the banister as hard as he possibly can, the cuts on his knuckles splitting cleanly open again. His mind clears and he starts racing back down the stairs — he can’t give up now.

Faintly, he hears the shrill shriek of a police whistle and freezes. A shout of _I've found her!_ jolts him into action and he follows the sound of the whistle down a corridor, through twists and turns he didn’t know were possible until he nearly runs straight into the ladder jutting down from the ceiling. He climbs it quickly, his knees going weak with relief when he sees Faye tied there, Strange and Morse reassuring her as they carefully undo the knots in the rope, freeing her from her constraints. 

“You got her. She all right?” He asks, struggling for breath. He’s not sure why he asked. She’s very clearly not alright.

"No harm,” Strange says, tugging the rope around her wrists loose.

Peter glances around, brow furrowing slightly. “Where’s Inspector Thursday?”

Morse suddenly looks horrified. “Scarpia.”

“Morse?” Strange asks, concerned.

"Oh… Miss Madison isn't the final victim. This isn't Cronyn's plan. I've made a mistake.”

Morse admitting that he’s made a mistake makes Peter’s blood run cold. ”F for Faye, though,” he stammers, gesturing at her.

“No, it's not Faye.” Morse shakes his head, his voice trembling. “It's Fred. Fred Thursday.”

A horrified silence. A switch in Peter’s brain flips.

“Strange, get her out of here,” he orders and Strange nods, moving to help Faye to her feet. “Morse, you find Bright—”

“But—”

“Do _not_ fucking argue with me, Constable!”

“Gull’s messages were for me, like you said!” Morse says desperately. “If you get Bright, I can stall him.”

They don’t have time for this, for Morse to pull his usual bullshit — Thursday could be dead by now; a thought so terrifying he instantly caves. “Fine!” He snaps. “But fuck this up and you’re done for, understand?”

He nods.

Peter doesn’t waste any time in dropping down the ladder, flying down the stairs, not thinking twice before grabbing onto the banister and vaulting halfway down the last flight, just about staying on feet as he lands and keeps going, skidding to a halt as Bright rounds the corner, flanked by uniforms.

“Sergeant?”

“It’s Thursday, he’s who Gull’s after,” he says breathlessly, just about remembering to tack a _Sir_ on the end.

Bright pales. “But Miss Madison…”

“Like Debbie Snow, Sir. A distraction.”

“Is she alright?”

“She’s with Strange, Sir.” He looks around wildly for a window, expecting to see his guvnor go sailing past at any second. “We need to get to the roof, _now_.”

“Very good.” Bright says, that frightening calm back. It’s as close to reassurance as Peter’s going to get, so he takes it. “Lead the way.”

The next couple of minutes are the most stressful of his life. He’ll reach the top of one flight of stairs and Bright’ll only be halfway up, the uniforms staying respectfully behind him. He tries to act like he’s not bothered, like he’s not being rude and impatient, but he’s seconds away from just throwing his boss over his shoulder and sprinting up the remaining steps, all the while convincing himself that Thursday is dead, that Morse is dead, that Faye and Strange are somehow dead, and that Gull will have disappeared and they’ll be back to square one.

Bright pushes the door to the roof open, sweeping through it, walking like he’s a king. “All under control, Thursday?” He says like he never had any doubts, like he’s never been afraid or worried in his life (and Peter _wants_ that).

“More or less, Sir, yes.” Thursday stands tall, unruffled, and Morse is a few steps behind him, gripping Gull’s arm and collar, marching him towards the door.

Bright gestures towards Gull, and Peter takes the bastard off Morse, digging his nails in as hard as he can.

“Lend a hand, Strange,” Bright instructs, and Strange gets the cuffs on him. Peter clicks them tighter, and if Strange notices, he doesn’t say anything.

“You think it's the end?” Gull says, suddenly surging towards Morse. “This is where it starts.”

“That's enough out of you,” Thursday says as Peter fiercely yanks him back, deliberately jarring his shoulder. For Debbie.

“We're the same, you and me,” he says to Morse, straining against Strange this time. “We bear the same burden. Intelligence. To be clever is to be alone. Forever. I see it in you.”

Peter glances up at Morse. He looks… scared. Young. Vulnerable. With a simple jerk of his head, Strange gets the message and they start hauling Gull away.

They’re halfway to the door when he shouts, “I know who you couldn't save, Morse!” His voice, vindictive and gloating, echoing up into the empty sky.

After it’s all finally, _finally_ over, there is nothing Peter wants to do more than go home, get obscenely drunk, and pass out on his sofa. But as he’s pulling his coat on, huddling into it against the chill of the station, he catches a glimpse of Morse, in the dark save for the weak light of his desk lamp, head bent over his typewriter.

He doesn’t particularly know what he feels, but it’s something very similar to _for fuck’s sake._

“Come for a drink,” he calls out, adjusting his collar. When he gets no response, he looks over at Morse’s desk, those so very blue eyes staring at him, baffled. “Now, Morse.” He shoves his hands in his pocket, feeling around for his cigarettes. He’s only got one left. It’ll have to do.

He shakes his head, gesturing vaguely at his desk. “I’ve work.”

He rolls his eyes. A standard response from both of them. “We’ve all got work.” He just about manages to resist calling him an insufferable little prick. Just. “And I’m your superior. So come for a drink.”

“But—”

“That’s an order, _Constable_.”

Morse glares at him, but gets up, walking over to Peter and snatching his own scruffy coat off the coat stand. “Yes, _Sergeant_.”

Peter should look away while he puts it on, as he adjusts the rolled-up cuffs over his bony wrists, as he pulls the thin material tight around his waist, but he doesn’t. He tries not to give it too much thought. “And less of that lip,” he warns, but there’s no real malice behind it. Not yet, anyway.

He just smiles that sarcastic little smile and gestures towards the door. “After you.”

Peter regrets his moment of Morse-based weakness the second he walks into the pub with the man. All eyes are instantly on them, a shocked hush rippling through the place like they’ve both grown an extra head. He knows that people know he’s not exactly a card-carrying member of the Detective Constable Morse Fan Club, but he didn't realise it was this bad. He should probably try and be a least a bit more subtle in future.

“Sit down, I’ll get ‘em in,” Peter says, trying incredibly hard not be self-conscious.

“Right,” Morse mumbles, suddenly subdued, twin spots of bright pink in his cheeks.

This is going to be a fucking nightmare.

He slides Morse a pint across the table and settles himself down opposite, lit cigarette between his lips — had to beg a light off the barmaid, didn’t he, because his stupid lighter’s still out for the count.

Morse doesn’t say thank you, but it’s not like he was expecting it. He’s starting to learn a couple of tricks of dealing with the little ginger prick, the first being _expect_ _nothing_ , and the second probably being something like _make sure you aren’t near any lethal weapons when he opens his mouth, because he’s incredibly fucking annoying and doesn’t know how to shut up._

“Cheers,” Peter starts, going to add something else but suddenly finds himself tongue-tied as Morse looks up at him, so he just raises his drink slightly.

“Cheers,” Morse echoes.

And they drink in silence.

When he’s about a third of the way through his pint, Peter ventures, “heard you’re gonna take your Sergeants.”

“Yep,” Morse replies stiffly, refusing to elaborate.

“Right.” He clears his throat. “Good talk.”

And that’s the end of that conversation.

Both of their glasses are rapidly approaching empty when Morse starts glancing at a spot just past Peter. He tries to ignore it, but it’s beginning to make him nervous.

When Morse does it for the fifth time in about twenty seconds, he snaps, “What are you looking at?”

He dithers for a second, then, “they keep looking at…” he stops himself, that blush creeping back into his cheeks. “You.”

Peter discreetly glances over his shoulder and grins. Two constables, sat at the bar, quietly arguing about something, their eyes flicking towards him and Morse. He’d recognise that look anywhere. “They’ve got a bet on.”

Morse tilts his head slightly in confusion, bearing a sudden and striking resemblance to Cat. “On what?”

“Probably on who’s gonna win the fight,” he says casually, stretching out, draping an arm over the back of the chair next to him.

“What fight?”

Peter rolls his eyes. For someone who’s meant to be clever, Morse can be incredibly thick sometimes. He lightly kicks Morse in the ankle, grinning. “The fight between us.”

Morse chokes on his pint.

“Your fucking face!” Peter laughs, stubbing his cigarette out.

After Morse remembers he’s not actually supposed to snort his beer, he stammers, “But we aren’t going to…”

“‘Course not. They just think we will.” But it would be so funny. He pauses to take a sip of his drink and let his imagination run wild with the image. “I’d win.” It wouldn’t even be a competition.

“I was in the army,” Morse says defensively.

“Signals, Morse.” He raises an eyebrow. “Hardly the front lines.”

He mutters something that sounds an awful lot like _piss off_ , but doesn’t push it. He idly traces circles on the table for a minute, then works up the courage to ask, “What happened to your hand?”

Peter clenches his fist reflexively, the scabs on his knuckles shifting and tearing, bright red blood beading at their edges. The idea of telling Morse what actually happened makes him feel sick, but he can’t think of anything believable fast enough, so just goes with, “mind your own business.”

And to Morse’s credit, he does.

He gets another round in, which Peter’s heard is rare — he’s honoured, really. He accidentally brushes Morse’s hand as they both reach out for their respective drinks at the same time; it’s a little awkward, but he thinks he comes out of it well. Or, at least, better than Morse, who blushes furiously and stutters so badly he can’t even get a coherent sentence out. Still, it makes Peter feel better.

They carry on drinking in silence, the pub a little quieter, a little warmer, Morse a little closer now than before.

“What did he mean?” Peter blurts out, grasping at straws to relieve some of the tension.

“Who?” He’s playing dumb — which isn’t hard for him — but he knows exactly who Peter’s on about.

“Gull. ‘I know who you couldn’t save’?”

Morse smooths his fingers over the little curl that sticks out at the nape of his neck. “Dunno.”

Peter chuckles. “You’re a really shit liar.”

“Thanks.”

“Not my fault.”

A pause, somehow much heavier than all the others, something he can’t name lingering in the space between them.

“Why are you doing this?” Morse asks quietly, fiddling with his collar.

Peter’s pint freezes halfway between the table and his mouth. “You what?”

“You hate me.”

Peter’s about to agree, but then Morse looks up at him, all big, so very blue eyes, and he finds himself saying, “hate’s a strong word.”

“Well, you don’t _like_ me.”

Agreeing with that is much easier. “No, I don’t.”

“So why are we here?”

He shrugs again. “You looked like you could use a drink.”

Morse makes a vague noise of agreement, tilting his pint the tiniest bit towards Peter, and takes a drink. They drift back into silence, but it’s comfortable. They know where they stand with each other.

The pub is much quieter now, half the people filtered out the door long ago, so much more still. The low, soft light dances across Morse’s skin, mingling with the faint haze of smoke, making him look like he’s not quite real, some kind of vision trick, in Peter’s eyes only; ethereal, almost. His hair, usually so frustratingly untidy, curls in such a way that it looks deliberate, shining red and gold all at once. If he was a girl, Peter would’ve called him pretty.

He lets the thought sit in his mind, not as heavy or uncomfortable as it probably should be. It’s fine. He’s just a bit pissed, is all. He leans back in his chair, stretches his legs out, looks at Morse looking away, and wonders.

He hated Morse at the beginning, and he still kind of does now. After all, how could he not? And it’s not like Morse is particularly easy to like, always too guarded and too quick to misjudge a conversation.

But when it’s dark, the lights low and the air still, there’s something else there.

That feeling, nameless and soft around the edges, that lingered between them in the back of Thursday’s car a lifetime ago.

He wonders if Morse felt it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> so. there's that.  
> recklessly unbeta'd as ever and far too long but i hope u enjoyed regardless !
> 
> (again, 80% of the dialogue lifted directly from the show bc. well. case fic!)


End file.
